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A former Southwestern Ontario nurse charged with murdering eight seniors suspected to have died of drug overdoses was fired from the nursing home where most of them died just days after the last suspicious death, after being accused of making repeated medication-related errors, The Free Press has learned.

In a search warrant obtained by The Free Press, the nursing director at Caressant Care nursing home in Woodstock told police early in their investigation that Elizabeth Wettlaufer’s dismissal was “for failing to follow insulin protocol.”

That’s one of several revelations in new information released Thursday in the search warrant that police used to seek Wettlaufer’s education records. The document contains unproven allegations contained in an affidavit sworn by a police officer to obtain a warrant.

Wettlaufer, 49, was frequently suspended from her job at the Woodstock nursing home where she worked and where seven of the eight alleged victims died between August 2007 and March 2014, according to the court document.

Her suspensions were for giving the wrong medications to patients before she was fired on March 31, 2014.

The last death at the Woodstock home, linked to Wettlaufer in the police probe, was that of Maureen Pickering, 79, on March 28, 2014.

The police didn’t begin their investigation into Wettlaufer for another year-and-a-half, after she had checked herself in to a Toronto psychiatric facility.

Four other alleged victims named in Wettlaufer’s charges — two of attempted murder through overdoses of insulin, and two of aggravated assault — also lived at the Woodstock facility when she worked there.

The eighth alleged murder victim, who died in August 2014, was a patient in Wettlaufer’s care at Meadow Park nursing home in London and suffered three major drops in blood sugar in the weeks before his death, according to the allegations.

The warrant also alleges Wettlaufer was asked not to return to Telfer Place, a Paris, Ont., nursing home, in March 2016 — where one of the alleged attempted murder victims lived — because of her treatment of staff there. At the time, Wettlaufer worked for Lifeguard Health Services.

Another alleged victim is a female resident of Oxford County and was attended to by Wettlaufer when she worked for Saint Elizabeth Health Services in August 2016, just weeks before Wettlaufer checked herself into the Toronto psychiatric facility.

“It was confirmed that Beth Wettlaufer had direct care of each of the victims mentioned in the Production Orders at, or just prior to, the time of their deaths,” the warrant reads.

Also included in the warrant is Wettlaufer’s letter of dismissal dated March 31, 2014, from the Caressant Care administrator, Brenda Van Quaethem, blaming her for giving the wrong medication to residents.

It wasn’t the first time. The letter indicated Wettlaufer had been warned regularly and suspended four times, including two five-day suspensions.

The OPP wanted the warrant to search Wettlaufer’s education records from Fanshawe College and Conestoga College, because they “may show comments or concerns from professors regarding Beth Wettlaufer’s behaviour or work performance.”

The newly-released portions of the warrant detail some of the patient notes at Caressant Care that were reviewed and given to the police by Helen Crombez, then the facility’s director of nursing care.

The warrant says Crombez went through patient notes for a police officer ,“specifically the observation of diaphoretic patients, that a patient had a seizure despite not being epileptic, and that a deceased patient had bulging eyes.”

“Crombez stated that these symptoms were consistent with an insulin overdose,” the warrant reads.

Despite these observations, the officer was told insulin wasn’t accounted for or secured at Caressant Care and “insulin would never be looked at as a cause of death.”

The new unredacted sections also detail the circumstances surrounding other charges against Wettlauifer.

She’s charged with the attempted murder of Clothilda Adriano, 87, a Caressant Care resident who was “clammy, sweating and difficult to arouse” on Aug. 27, 2007. Wettlaufer was working that night and “that was the only time Adriano exhibited those symptoms,” according to the warrant. A Woodstock doctor confirmed “that insulin levels would never be checked at the time of death.” Adriano died July 30, 2008. “You wouldn’t be able to determine insulin levels by exhuming bodies and even if you were looking for insulin levels during an autopsy, it would be difficult to find,” the warrant reads.

The warrant said Crombez told police that Wayne Hedges, 57, another Carressant Care resident named as victim in one of the attempted murder charges, was given the drug “glucagon” by Wettlaufer when he was found to have “critically low blood sugar.” The drug reverses the effects of low blood sugar. The charge regarding Hedges is dated October 2008. He died Oct. 28, 2008.

Michael Priddle, 63, another Caressant Care resident, named in an attempted murder charge and who died in December 2012, had Huntington’s disease and “there was no time that Priddle was found unresponsive but he was under the care of Wettlaufer,” the warrant reads. Priddle died in December 2012.

Arpad Horvath, 75, who died at the London nursing home, and is one of the eight people listed in the first-degree murder indictment, was found “unresponsive with very low blood sugar” at Meadow Park on Aug. 24, 2014. He died Aug. 31, 2014. The warrant said he was given glucagen and taken to the London Health Science Centre’s Victoria Hospital. “After Horvath’s blood sugar was stabilized from the glucagen, it crashed and became very low again shortly thereafter as the long acting insulin kicked in,” the warrant reads. Horvath’s blood sugar was reported low three times on June 28, 2014, July 12, 2014 and Aug. 3, 2014. In each case Wettlaufer was his nurse, according to the document.

In the case of Sandra Towler, 77, a patient at the Paris home and named as a victim of attempted murder, the warrant states that she was one of Wettlaufer’s patients and “insulin was not controlled or monitored at Telfer Place.” Towler is one of the few listed as an alleged victim who is still alive. Wettlaufer was asked not to return to the Paris nursing home in April 2016 “due to her behaviour towards other staff members,” according to the warrant. At the time, she was employed by Lifeguard Homecare but quit on Aug. 7, 2016, when, through an email, she said she “(c)an no longer function as a Registered Nurse,” according to the document.

Wettlaufer only worked for Saint Elizabeth Health Care for five weeks and there wasn’t any negative feedback about her job performance, the warrant says. The warrant says she resigned Sept. 2, 2016 because, she said, “she couldn’t do it anymore.”

Wettlaufer checked herself into the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto on Sept. 16, 2016. Shortly after, the Woodstock police were contacted by the Toronto police after they had interviewed her.

Her psychiatrist was interviewed by police on Sept. 29, 2016.

Wettlaufer’s case is still before the courts, and she has not entered any pleas.

She has been in custody since her arrest last October. Since then, the bodies of Horvath and Helen Matheson, 95, who died on Oct. 27, 2011 at Caressant Care, have been exhumed and re-interred.

Wettlaufer returns to court by video appearance from Milton’s Vanier Centre for Women on Apr. 7.

Family members of some of the victims said they were angry that Wettlaufer was allowed to carry on as a nurse for so long, given the allegations contained in the warrant that she had problems with administering medications and the laundry list of complaints.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Susan Horvath, daughter of Arpad Horvath, who said she had suspicions about her father’s health care before he went into a diabetic coma and died.

“On March 26, 2014, I became aware of a serious situation involving resident (H.D.). Upon investigation it became apparent that you had administered the wrong medication (to a resident). Instead of giving her the medication that had been prescribed to her, that was prescribed to another resident. This then resulted that in her being incorrectly medicated and over-medicated as well. The resident experienced distress as a result of this.

“At our meeting you acknowledged that this was an error on your part and explained that it was inadvertant. Bethe, although you have acknowledged this latest error, this is another incident in a pattern of behaviours that are placing residents at risk. You have an extensive disciplinary record for medication-related errors which includes numerous warnings as well as 1, 3, and two 5-day suspensions.”

“As a result of this most recent occurrence, the termination of your employment is warranted. Please be advised that your employment is terminated effective immediately.”